A high-tech method for detecting disease in domestic cattle is helping researchers in Yellowstone National Park learn more about how sarcoptic mange effects gray wolf survival and behavior during the park's long, cold winters. For Paul Cross, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, a moment of insight came when he learned how thermal imaging was used in the cattle industry to detect cows infected with foot-and-mouth disease. The heat-sensitive cameras can pick up on the heat caused by related inflammation in a cow's hoof within a day or two of contracting the disease. Heat-sensing videocameras could help show the metabolic costs of mange in specific wolves, Ross realized. Continue Reading →
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Yellowstone crowdsources visitor photos to help study wolf disease, dynamics
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A Penn State University graduate student working on the Yellowstone Wolf Project has launched an Internet campaign to raise funds for a website that will let visitors upload wolf photos along with location information and other data. The goal is to track the spread and progress of sarcoptic mange among individual wolves and packs. But the effort could also prove helpful to other areas of wolf research. Continue Reading →